Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a flange mechanism for mounting a cutting blade to a spindle and also to a cutting apparatus including the flange mechanism.
Description of the Related Art
In a cutting apparatus for cutting a workpiece by feeding a rotating cutting blade into the workpiece, a cutting water is supplied from a nozzle to the cutting blade in cutting the workpiece. To prevent the vibration of the cutting blade in the direction of its thickness due to the discharge of the cutting water from the nozzle, the nozzle should be positioned accurately with respect to the cutting blade. To meet this requirement, there has been proposed a technique of using an adjusting jig to adjust the position of the nozzle with respect to the cutting blade (see Japanese Patent Laid-open Nos. 2011-212815 and 2010-42490, for example).
However, even by using the adjusting jig described in Japanese Patent Laid-open Nos. 2011-212815 and 2010-42490, time and effort are still required to accurately position the nozzle and the cutting blade. To cope with this problem, there has been proposed a technique of supplying a cutting water from a spindle through the inside of a flange to a cutting blade mounted through the flange to the spindle without using the nozzle (see Japanese Patent Laid-open Nos. Hei 8-155949 and Hei 6-71563, for example). Further, there has also been proposed a technique of forming an annular groove on the flange for holding the cutting blade, and discharging a cutting water toward the annular groove to thereby supply the cutting water through the inside of the flange to the cutting blade (see Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2003-225844, for example).